A girl killed herself by jumping from a building after being “battered” by a nun, a former children’s home resident told an abuse inquiry yesterday.

Anne Marie Carr said the girl, who was aged 10 or 11, died after leaping from a fire escape at a home in East Ayrshire because she had “taken too much of a beating”.

Anne Marie, 64, who has waived her right to anonymity, attended Smyllum Park in Lanarkshire between 1960 and 1964 along with her brother Samuel, before going to Nazareth House in Kilmarnock after his death.

She told the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry in Edinburgh: “(The nun) had taken her up the stairs and battered her, and told her to go to her bed. We were still out playing. Somehow the fire escape was open.

"She must’ve taken too much of a beating and threw herself out the front of the building.”